Phoenix activity: Regulatory challenges and the law

Remedying the mischief of phoenix activity is of practical importance. The benefits include continued confidence in our economy, law that inspires best practice among directors, and law that is articulated in a manner such that penalties act as a sufficient deterrent and the regulatory system is able to detect offenders and bring them to account. Any further reforms must accommodate and tolerate legal phoenix activity. Phoenix activity pushes tolerance of entrepreneurial activity to its absolute limits. The wisest approach would be to front end the reforms so as to alleviate the considerable detection and enforcement burden upon regulatory bodies. There is little doubt that breach of the existing law is difficult and expensive to detect; and this is a significant burden when regulators have shrinking budgets and are rapidly losing feet on the ground. This front end approach may need to include restrictions on access to limited liability. The more limited liability is misused, the stronger the argument to limit access to limited liability. This paper proposes that such an approach is a legitimate next step for a robust and mature capitalist economy.

Law and Foreign Direct Investment. IES WORKING PAPER 4/2011

In this paper we examine the effect of law on foreign direct investment outflows with a specific interest in the relationship between international investment law and domestic private property laws. Our results indicate that FDI investor is indifferent to host country property rights, hence shareholder protection by law is not a significant determinant of FDI outflows. We argue that FDI, in contrast with other types of capital flows, can effectively mitigate the agency problem through majority ownership and control, hence reduce exposure to ex-post expropriation by the affiliate. On the other hand, FDI investor remains exposed to risk of expropriation by the host government and is strongly sensitive to the enforcement of law in the host country. In contrast with recent literature we conclude that there are no causal relationship between bilateral investment treaties and FDI.

Beyond difference : reconfiguring education for the user-led age

In recent years, various observers have pointed to the shifting paradigms of cultural and societal participation and economic production in developed nations. These changes are facilitated (although, importantly, not solely driven) by the emergence of new, participatory technologies of information access, knowledge exchange, and content production, many of whom are associated with Internet and new media technologies. In an online context, such technologies are now frequently described as social software, social media, or Web2.0, but their impact is no longer confined to cyberspace as an environment that is somehow different and separate from ‘real life’: user-led content and knowledge production is increasingly impacting on media, economy, law, social practices, and democracy itself.

Economic theory informing approaches to phoenix activity in small business: A neo-Schumpeterian analysis

The adequacy and efficiency of existing legal and regulatory frameworks dealing with corporate phoenix activity have been repeatedly called into question over the past two decades through various reviews, inquiries, targeted regulatory operations and the implementation of piecemeal legislative reform. Despite these efforts, phoenix activity does not appear to have abated. While there is no law in Australia that declares ‘phoenix activity’ to be illegal, the behaviour that tends to manifest in phoenix activity can be capable of transgressing a vast array of law, including for example, corporate law, tax law, and employment law. This paper explores the notion that the persistence of phoenix activity despite the sheer extent of this law suggests that the law is not acting as powerfully as it might as a deterrent. Economic theories of entrepreneurship and innovation can to some extent explain why this is the case and also offer a sound basis for the evaluation and reconsideration of the existing law. The challenges facing key regulators are significant. Phoenix activity is not limited to particular corporate demographic: it occurs in SMEs, large companies and in corporate groups. The range of behaviour that can amount to phoenix activity is so broad, that not all phoenix activity is illegal. This paper will consider regulatory approaches to these challenges via analysis of approaches to detection and enforcement of the underlying law capturing illegal phoenix activity. Remedying the mischief of phoenix activity is of practical importance. The benefits include continued confidence in our economy, law that inspires best practice among directors, and law that is articulated in a manner such that penalties act as a sufficient deterrent and the regulatory system is able to detect offenders and bring them to account. Any further reforms must accommodate and tolerate legal phoenix activity, at least to some extent. Even then, phoenix activity pushes tolerance of repeated entrepreneurial failure to its absolute limit. The more limited liability is misused and abused, the stronger the argument to place some restrictions on access to limited liability. This paper proposes that such an approach is a legitimate next step for a robust and mature capitalist economy.

Els Ensenyaments d'ordenació del territori i urbanisme a les universitats catalanes: Societat Catalana d'Ordenació del Territori-Institut d'Estudis Catalans (setembre de 2000-juny de 2001)

Over the academic year 2000-2001, the Societat Catalana d'Ordenació del Territori organised, together with other departments of Catalan public universities, a debate on the teaching of regional and urban planning within the following disciplines: environmental science, geography, architecture, engineering, economy, law and landscape management. Moreover it was considered that attention should be paid to urban and regional planning related to postgraduate degrees. The aim was on one hand to analyse present situation, and on the other, to propose future strategies

O controle concorrencial dos atos de concentração como instrumento de implementação de política pública estatal

Pós-graduação em Direito - FCHS

Közterületi térfigyelés és adatvédelem

Az utóbbi években Magyarországon is gyorsan terjednek a közterületeken létesített elektronikus térfigyelő rendszerek, amelyek elsődleges célja a közbiztonság növelése, a bűnmegelőzés és a bűnüldözés technikai támogatása. A rendszerek alkalmazásának azonban nemkívánatos mellékhatása is van; új oldalról fenyegetik a személyiségi jogokat. A tisztességes és törvényes adatkezelés alkotmányos követelményeinek biztosítása érdekében olyan jogi szabályozásra és adatkezelési gyakorlat kialakítására van szükség, amely képes összebékíteni a biztonság iránti igényt és a személyi szabadságot, a magánszféra védelmét. A tanulmány e kérdéseket járja körül, és a megoldás egy lehetséges módjára is rámutat.

Continuous and pedagogically sound assessment : A new economy of power relations in Australian Law schools

In recent decades, assessment practices within Australian law schools have moved from the overwhelming use of end-of-year closed-book examinations to an increase in the use of a wider range of techniques. This shift is often characterised as providing a ‘better’ learning environment for students, contributing more positively to their own ‘personal development’ within higher education, or, considered along the lines of critical legal thought, as ‘liberating’ them from the ‘conservatising’ and ‘indoctrinating’ effects of the power relations that operate in law schools. This paper seeks to render problematic such liberal-progressive narratives about these changes to law school assessment practices. It will do so by utilising the work of French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault on power, arguing that the current range of assessment techniques demonstrates a shift in the ‘economy’ of power relations within the law school. Rather than ‘liberating’ students from relations of power, these practices actually extend the power relations through which students are governed. This analysis is intended to inform legal education research and assessment practice by providing a far more nuanced conceptual framework than one that seeks to ‘free’ law students from these ‘repressive’ practices, or hopes to ‘objectively’ contribute to their ‘personal development’.

Legal Regulation of Corporate Social Responsibility : A Meta-Regulation Approach of Law for Raising CSR in a Weak Economy

"Even though Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a widely accepted concept promoted by different stakeholders, business corporations' internal strategies, known as corporate self-regulation in most of the weak economies, respond poorly to this responsibility. Major laws relating to corporate regulation and responsibilities of these economies do not possess adequate ongoing influence to insist on corporate self-regulation to create a socially responsible corporate culture. This book describes how the laws relating to CSR could contribute to the inclusion of CSR principles at the core of the corporate self-regulation of these economies in general, without being intrusive in normal business practice. It formulates a meta-regulation approach to law, particularly by converging patterns of private ordering and state control in contemporary corporate law from the perspective of a weak economy. It proposes that this approach is suitable for alleviating regulators' limited access to information and expertise, inherent limitations of prescriptive rules, ensuring corporate commitment, and enhance the self-regulatory capacity of companies. This book describes various meta-regulation strategies for laws to link social values to economic incentives and disincentives, and to indirectly influence companies to incorporate CSR principles at the core of their self-regulation strategies. It investigates this phenomenon using Bangladesh as a case study."--publisher website

Copyrights and copyfights : copyright law and the digital economy

This paper will consider questions around the reform of copyright law, and how they are increasingly being framed by the challenges of the digital economy. It discusses the review of copyright and the digital economy being undertaken by the Australian Law Reform Commission, with particular reference to the costs and benefits of copyright law to consumers and creative producers. We argue that there is a pressing need to develop fair copyright rules that encourage investment in the digital economy, allow widespread dissemination of knowledge through society, and support the innovative reuse of copyright works. To better align copyright law with these goals, we recommend that Australia introduce an open ended ‘fair use’ style copyright exception, and encourage the development of a digital copyright exchange of the sort discussed in the UK by the Hargreaves and Hooper Reports.